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The Ridiculous Debate About Paying For Health Care

As part of their plan to raise the funds for universal health care, the White House is planning on revising the way the estate tax is paid. That’s a really good idea! But this passage jumps out at me:

Filling that gap actually understates Mr. Obama’s problems in paying for reforming health care. The deductions limit has hit a wall of opposition in Congress, with the Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate tax-writing committees among others objecting that it could depress tax-deductible charitable contributions. The proposal accounts for half of Mr. Obama’s proposed $635 billion, 10-year reserve fund to introduce cost-saving changes into health care and to expand coverage to the uninsured;

The debate on health care reform is really simple in my opinion. You either want universal health care or you don’t. Those few people who are arguing against health care reform, who are clearly in the minority, are swimming upstream without a paddle or a fact to back them up. The fact is that we had an election and the universal health care people won, overwhelmingly. That’s life conservatives.

So the real debate at this point in the discussion is how to pay for health care reform. Here’s a tip for everyone reading this blog. Call it politics 101 if you will.

THINGS COST MONEY. YES, EVEN THINGS YOU LIKE!

Rather than debate lofty ideals and semantics, people need to realize this simple point. We have to pay for health care somehow. If you don’t want to deficit spend, then the government is either going to have to raise taxes or cut spending somewhere.

So far the White House has proposed that we raise this money in one of three ways. Closing tax loopholes that let corporations avoid paying hundreds of billions in taxes, slightly raising the estate tax, and/or limiting charitable contributions to 28%. While I certainly have an opinion on which option is preferable, I’m not picky. I’d settle for doing any of the three, or any combination of the three.

But if you’re that adamant about letting corporations get away with tax fraud, not raising a tax that effects !% of the population, or letting the rich lower their taxes by buying lavish statue at their school, then the burden of proof is on you to come up with a method to pay for health care. And no I don’t mean a bullshit “method” like “ummm we should get rid of welfare” or “shrink the size of the army!”. No, I mean a real idea that can seriously can be considered a legitimate option. Anything else is just pissing in the wind.